Sci-Fi Storm

While the Oscars were good in general for genre movies at least for nominations, it was Mad Max: Fury Road that stood out with the statues, collecting six of them in a near-sweep of the technical awards (Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Make-up and Hair, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing), and coming out the big winner of the night.

However, the rest of the genre fell flat, with favorite The Martian and Star Wars: The Force Awakens not getting any awards, and Ex Machina winning for Visual Effects and Inside Out winning for Best Animated Film.

All is not lost – at least Fantastic Four made a good showing at the Razzies. 🙂

Update: Also announced today is that Benicio del Toro, Laura Dern and newcomer Kelly Marie Tran are joining the cast in (surprise!) unspecified roles.

Star Wars: Episode VIII officially entered production today, and it looks like it picks up right where it left off 🙂

Well, obviously that was filmed at Skellig Michael, where the final scene of Episode VII was filmed, and production begins on principal photography at Pinewood Studios today. But who cares – it has begun!

From the release:

Rey took her first steps into a larger world in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and will continue her epic journey with Finn, Poe and Luke Skywalker in the next chapter of the continuing Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode VIII, which began principal photography at Pinewood Studios in London on February 15, 2016.
(continue reading…)

If there was any thought that Star Wars: The Force Awakens would slow down by now, then you need to drink some more blue milk. Yesterday, the film hit $900 million at the domestic box office, after just 50 days of release, increasing it’s #1 position by a very large margin. And today it is expected to cross the $2 billion mark worldwide, closing in on #2 Titanic, which sits at $2.19B, and overall king Avatar at $2.78B.

Actress Gwendoline Christie was on the red carpet last night for the SAG Awards, and while talking to People, mentioned that she’d be back in the next Star Wars movie, which is a good thing since otherwise she’d be the most hyped but underused character since Boba Fett’s original trilogy appearances.

“I will be in the next Star Wars movie. I think that’s an exclusive, actually,” she told the interviewer. “I was very overexcited. I made no secret of the fact that I really campaigned for the part for a long time, and then I was delighted when J.J. Abrams wanted to have me in the film and then wanted to cast me in this role that had originally been designed for a man.”

What’s curious is that this wasn’t exactly an exclusive – or new news, really. Back before the movie even came out, the LA Times ran an article about the women if Star Wars, and in it producer Kathleen Kennedy confirmed that Captain Phasma would return for Episode VIII. “She’s an important character, a baddie in the best sense of the word,” Kennedy said.

So, yes, it’s confirmed that Phasma somehow (SPOILERS!!!!!!) escapes the trash compactor (if our heroes did indeed toss her in one), AND escaped Starkiller Base before the whole planet blew up, and will be back. I wonder how shiny her chrome armor will be after that…

Just some quick stories…first, Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, will star in a Wonderful World of Disney special called “Disneyland 60” where he will preview the upcoming Star Wars-themed park areas at both Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in Walt Disney World. Filming of the special starts tomorrow and will air on February 21st on ABC. The special itself will focus on Disneyland’s 60th anniversary, with Derek Hough as host and Elton John, Josh Gad and Witney Carson already announced as guests.

The 100‘s Ricky Whittle will be protagonist Shadow Moon in the upcoming Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, about the struggle between the old gods of mythology and the new gods that represent modern society’s influences – money, power, technology, etc. Ex-con Shadow find himself as a bodyguard to the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, “a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.” Bryan Fuller and Michael Green are writers/showrunners, and David Slade (Hannibal) is directing the pilot and will direct additional episodes. Shooting is expected to start in April.

The Time After Time series remake for ABC we reported on in September has gotten a pilot order from ABC. It’s still early in the process as there does not appear to be any casting contingency in the pilot order, but I understand that studio Warner Bros. TV had one or more “if come” deals with casting directors if the project got picked up.

Perhaps not very surprising, after the huge success at the box office for Star Wars: The Force Awakens with the December holiday debut (the first time a Star Wars film opened outside the traditional “Summer Blockbuster” period), Disney and Lucasfilm pushed the next film in the saga story to open on December 15th, 2017, rather than the previously scheduled May 26th, 2017 date, presumably to once again capture the rich holiday box office it gained last time. This also provides some more room for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to shine, which was originally only going to have three weeks before its sibling studio’s Jedi Juggernaut, opening on May 5th.

However, it does put it up directly against Dreamworks’ Ready Player One, and just 10 days later Avatar 2, which could make for a very interesting box office…

After 5 weeks, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has passed the $1 billion mark in the international box office, as it closes in on $1.9 billion globally. This marks the first Disney movie to pass the $1B mark internationally.

This also places it 5th in the all time international list, and should in fact move to fourth past Jurassic World within a day or two. Globally it’s in third place behind Titanic and number one Avatar, with about $317 million left to move into second place.

The Force may be with Rey and Finn, but the Academy isn’t. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was left out of the “big six” awards when the nominations came out this morning, although Mad Max: Fury Road (who led all nominations with 10) and The Martian snagged Best Picture nods, with Mad Max also getting the nod for Directing for George Miller, and The Martian a Best Actor nomination for Matt Damon. The Martian director Ridley Scott was left off the list.

Star Wars did pick up nominations for Film Editing (Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey), Original Score (John Williams), Visual Effects (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould), Sound Editing (Matthew Wood and David Acord), and Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson).

Mad Max: Fury Road also received Film Editing (Margaret Sixel), Production Design (Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson), Visual Effects (Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams), Cinematography (John Seale), Costume Design (Jenny Beavan), Makeup and Hairstyling (Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin), Sound Editing (Mark Mangini and David White), and Sound Mixing (Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo).

The Martian also received Production Design (Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak), Visual Effects (Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner), Adapted Screenplay (Drew Goddard), Sound Editing (Oliver Tarney) and Sound Mixing (Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth).

It’s time. It’s been three weeks. I’ve seen it again. People NEED to discuss it. But in case you somehow haven’t seen it yet, SPOILERS AHEAD!

By the way, I saw it again this past weekend in IMAX 4k Laser 3D. This is an awesome way to see it – brighter and higher contrast. For most of the movie it was shown in the standard aspect ratio, which meant that the full height of the IMAX screen wasn’t used. But for many if not all of the scenes on Jakku it was filmed with an IMAX camera, and the full IMAX aspect ratio was used on our screen – even though this was in a digital format, whereas only the 70mm film format generally could be shown so large. IMAX has finally figured it out and figured it out well. Alas, I believe there are only 7 such projectors currently in the U.S., and about 13 worldwide at this point. So if you do have one near you, GO!

And visually, while keeping some of the classic feel of the original trilogy, it at the same time felt more realistic with the location shoots in a number of locations, especially in the outside scenes on Takodana.

Now, for the discussion points…if you’d like to take part in a discussion, join me over on our Facebook page and find the post for this article.
(continue reading…)

At any moment, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will become the number 1 all time grossing movie in the U.S., taking in around $750 million after the 2nd-higest ever New Years Weekend box office draw of $219.3M. The current record holder is Avatar.

Globally the film is still in fourth at $1.536B, with Jurassic World ($1.669B), Titanic ($2.187B) and Avatar ($2.788B) still ahead of it. Third is likely and possibly second, but it is a long way from Avatar still. A big question mark will be China, where it opens this Saturday. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has reached it’s totals much faster than it’s predecessors though…will it have the steam to reach the top?